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Tuesday, April 09, 2013

I strongly belive that life never hands out anything that one can't handle. The funny part is that there are always times when one feels why life gave him/her that much credit.

Nine months since I stopped writing in this space. The nine months like any other nine months that taught me something or the other. The nine months at the beginning of which life as I knew it was reset. The nine months at the end of which begins probably another significant time period. The nine months that altered a lot of things about me, my lifestyle, my work, my happiness, my dreams, my livelihood and even the city/country I lived.

One year ago I wouldn't have dreamt of visiting The Great Wall of China (of all places). But, I was there last Friday, not just there, we climbed up to the top most point possible, and not just that, it snowed heavily, like a storm, just for 10 minutes - the same 10 minutes we chose to be there. The timing was simply brilliant. Call it God. Call it Nature. Call it Science. Call it Music. I know it was one thing. Bliss.

Life is all about such wonderful timing. It keeps on springing surprises - some good, some bad. You never get to settle down. If you are ambitious, and go for something, you may get it, sometimes really quick, but, it never comes alone. There is always the package that comes along, and at the top of the list are people who think you didn't deserve it. Somehow the most fitting explanation becomes luck or right place at the right time. It is only temporary though. Bad times come back and all those people you always looked out for, stood by and stood up for will be too busy to even notice that something is wrong. Suddenly, whatever you say, whatever you do, is controversial. In the end, you get hit where it hurts most - that blank stare of insignificance as if you were nothing but a piece of botheration. No one has the time to sit and think. Even Newton didn't bother coming up with a fourth law once he figured the third one out.

And with a big mouth, all this becomes even more harder. If the timing is not right, more often than not, you talk yourself into situations than out of them. After living a childhood full of lies (so many of which friends and family still believe to be true), I eventually gave the habit up because decieving had become so easy. Then I stepped in to an industry where truth has no value. Everybody wants to play mind games, extract information indirectly (someone needs to tell these duffers that all they have to do is ask), spam mail boxes and expect you to spam theirs as well in the name of keeping in the loop, say thank you when they don't mean it at all and the biggest scam of all - diplomacy.

Is life that hard? When you sit down to think about all the zillion people who always seem to be happy, you realize that it's no magic. They are human beings too. The common factor in all those zillion people I know is that they absolutely know who they are. They give credit to what they can and don't commit to want they cannot. It's impossible to be perfect (at least to the eyes of everyone) because perfect is such a relative term. In the quest of being that perfect son, perfect brother, perfect friend, perfect employee you end up being an imperfect self.

Amidst all this, what makes life worth it are those small moments like the snow in great wall, looking at a random set of characters that your 2 year old niece types in to the IM window while chatting with your sister, sharing a silly laugh with your colleagues over tea or that persistent hope of goodwill that this will pass on. The moments where ego doesn't matter, moments when you could be yourself rather than being correct. A world where people look for relationships rather than perfect match. A world where people leave their business strategies at the shoe stand (and the shoe stand at the entrace or outside of the house). A world where the excited tweeter doesn't get blamed for Sachin getting out in the 90s.

It has been a great nine months nonetheless. If all goes well, I'll write more and more about it. Eitherways, one important lesson that I'll never forget is that I'm not perfect and I will never be. Most importantly, I'd expect nothing less from the people around me.